


Of Explosive Devices and Sugarplum Fairies; or, Fireworks and Violins

by stew (julie)



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Episode: s03e01 The Purging of CI5, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1992-02-01
Updated: 1992-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23171035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: Someone is trying to assassinate Cowley and the CI5 operatives – and succeeding all too often. Doyle finds there’s nothing like the threat of imminent death to focus the mind on what’s really important in life.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Kudos: 8





	Of Explosive Devices and Sugarplum Fairies; or, Fireworks and Violins

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** Based in and around episode 301 _The Purging of CI5_. 
> 
> **First published:** in the zine ‘Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink’ #1 by Manacles Press in February 1992.

# Of Explosive Devices and Sugarplum Fairies 

## or, Fireworks and Violins

♦

It hadn’t taken much: we were both a bit high-strung after a particularly successful and dangerous day. And, lately, the hysteria that inevitably sets in after twelve solid hours of murder and mayhem was becoming a familiar state of mind. You can always tell just by listening to Bodie for five minutes, if by no other way – those endearing nicknames he calls me get much sillier than _angelfish_ after extended periods of sleep deprivation. 

Cowley had sent us home at about nine in the evening with strict instructions to be in again at seven the next morning. I had the white Escort signed out of the motor pool, so it was easiest all round to just give Bodie a lift home. And it was even easier to accept Bodie’s offer of a beer once we’d got there. 

In an effort to unwind in the least energetic way possible, we sat in front of the telly, and happened upon the end of a steamy, if arty, movie. The damn thing started to really get to me, no doubt partly because my current girl had given up on me days ago – not that I could blame her, because there simply hadn’t been the time lately to pay her any kind of attention. Bodie had set up a double date for us the following night, with his long-suffering Joanna and a friend of hers, but of course there was no guarantee that I’d get lucky even then. 

The movie was obviously getting to Bodie, too – he was soon bemoaning the fact that Joanna wouldn’t be available until tomorrow night, and what was he to do in the meantime? 

‘What do I care?’ I retorted. ‘What the hell am _I_ going to do? And is Joanna’s friend likely to cooperate even then?’ 

Bodie seemed to ignore these vital questions, the prat. Instead, he proceeded to relate to me what Joanna had done to him the last time he’d seen her. In lurid detail. She sounded like an interesting lady… It wasn’t just the movie that was steaming by the end of that little tale – I was all set to wring Bodie’s neck for him by then. The ladies must love his line in charmingly erotic patter, but this was not the time nor the place nor the companion for it… 

‘You’re as bad off as me, aren’t you, pumpkin?’ he murmured at last, sympathetic and rueful. 

‘And it’s all your fault,’ I complained. _Pumpkin_ was one I hadn’t heard before. 

‘Better do something about it then, hadn’t I?’ And he reached for me, right there on the sofa, and settled his mouth at my throat while his hands busied themselves elsewhere. He surprised me, that was for sure. Except I surprised myself even more by returning his attentions a few dazed moments later. 

It didn’t take much at all. The sex we shared that night was short and very very sweet. And lying in his bed afterwards, drowsy and comfortable, tangled up in his warm skin and his cool sheets – that was strangely sweeter still. 

♦

Then the sex when we woke the next morning was bloody nice, too. Which was why we turned up at work half an hour late, weakly joking with each other that even Cowley himself wouldn’t be in at that hour. We knew better, really. God only knew what excuse we’d give him about being late, but I was sure we’d breeze through it. Bodie was in his cheekiest and happiest mood, bouncing around like a ten-year-old, the trademark repartee flying thick and fast. Even Cowley couldn’t stay mad at him for long when he was like that. Maybe especially Cowley. 

We were wandering down the corridor to Cowley’s office when we spied a likely bird – long dark hair, red sweater and no bra. Very nice. I silently shared my opinion of her with Bodie, and turned to give her the eye. And she smiled right back at both of us. Definitely looked like a good prospect for some happy hours there. ‘She’s new, isn’t she?’ I asked, wondering if Bodie had seen her before. But he obviously hadn’t. 

We’d just reached the next set of double doors when a bomb blast sent us flying. _Cowley’s office_. We picked ourselves up and _ran_. 

The old man was indestructible, though – had I ever thought any different? It was more than his canny wits, I reckoned. Probably had a special arrangement with the man upstairs. 

Phillips, our bomb expert, was gleefully sifting through the wreckage of his boss’s office within moments. ‘What did he say exactly?’ Phillips asked, referring to the phone call Cowley had received just before the explosion. Bodie and I stood around, waiting for something to do. 

‘Just that there was a bomb, and that I had thirty seconds,’ Cowley replied. 

‘And thirty seconds later, it went off,’ Phillips continued. 

‘That’s very generous,’ Bodie observed sarcastically. ‘A thirty second warning.’ 

‘Well, it was if you think about it,’ Phillips countered, amused and intrigued by the whole thing. 

Bodie cast me an eloquent look while Phillips rabbited on – Phillips seemed far more interested in the crime and the scheming behind it than the potential victim. 

The only lead we had right away was an unknown posing as a GPO man who had been snooping around yesterday, so Cowley sent us off to see Murray, CI5’s tame GPO worker. We scarpered, having happily avoided the topic of our late arrival. I knew the old man would catch up with us on that, though. You couldn’t put much past the Cow. 

Bodie was teasing me as we waited for the lift, and instead of retaliating verbally, I jumped him. We reached the ground floor still scuffling, and fell out through the doors in each other’s arms, to everyone else’s surprise. Just our luck that half of CI5 was waiting for the lift at that precise moment. Or their luck, maybe. I didn’t really care. Laughing, I chased Bodie out to the car park. 

The weather was perfect, and I was happy, and Bodie was so much fun to be with it was sinful. 

♦

Murray was his usual helpful and sardonic self – he reckoned everyone in CI5 took themselves far too seriously with all this cloak and dagger stuff, and that unlike him we could never see the wood for the trees. He liked Bodie, though. Just thought my partner should have got himself a real job, like grubbing around with phone lines or something, instead of wasting taxpayers’ money swanning around in fast cars with a prat like me. 

We were heading off to triple check Murray’s story and to hopefully figure how someone had won themselves a false Class A security clearance and GPO credentials to boot, when Cowley ordered us to make for some old council flats with all due speed. 

‘Come on, petal,’ my partner says with sweet encouragement as I’m tearing along at eighty-five mph in a residential zone. ‘He sounded like it was urgent.’ 

‘I’ll give you bloody urgent,’ I muttered, my attention where it should have been under the circumstances – and firmly convinced that Bodie could not have driven the little Escort any faster. 

‘Oh yeah,’ he murmured appreciatively. ‘Seen you when you’re bloody urgent. It’s lovely.’ 

I hit a straight and deserted road at last, and cast him a searching glance. He was smiling like the cat who’d got not only the cream but the Cadbury Dairy Milk factory as well. Because of last night? It was a question I wanted answered, but I had no idea exactly what answer I wanted to hear. Faced with the indecision – and an old-age pensioner complete with shopping trolley stepping blithely onto a pedestrian crossing – I turned back to the road and asked him for directions to the damn council flats. It seemed I’d been taking Bodie far too much for granted lately – I’d been way beyond expecting surprises, when really I knew very little about him. 

Once at the flats, it seemed obvious that the trouble was over. Looked like there had been some kind of explosion – a flat on the first floor was now blackened and sodden, with jagged gaping holes where the door and window had been. Curious members of the public and firemen in full regalia and a couple of coppers were milling around, all getting in each other’s way. I parked the car where there was room, and we headed towards the building. 

‘See – we were so slow we missed all the action,’ Bodie said mournfully. 

I couldn’t help myself, even with Joe Public surrounding us _en masse_. I jumped on him and landed a few mock punches in his kidneys, while he laughingly and unsuccessfully fended me off. Life, for once, seemed just peachy. 

Of course, that’s when the day started going wrong. As we got up to the first floor, Fischer emerged from the burnt-out flat. I thought at first the lingering smoke had choked her up, but she said, ‘It was Williams.’ And I saw that she was trying not to cry. 

Inside, Phillips would have been having another field day if the results this time hadn’t been so tragic. Williams’ partner Lake was more furious than upset. Set up by their snitch, Chris. An occupational hazard, perhaps, but one that CI5 operatives rarely fell for. 

Then Cowley got a call on the caretaker’s phone – two bombs down, an undisclosed number to go. First all the operatives, and then Cowley – presumably this time with no warning. I turned to Bodie. He was looking back at me, with a determined set to his face. I didn’t have to ask him what he was thinking. _Trouble_. 

♦

Out of all the operatives, both active and inactive, only Matheson and King didn’t acknowledge the warning sent out over the radio, so Cowley sent me and Bodie to go find them. But we were too late. 

Matheson was presumably in the car, which was still engulfed in flames. Maybe he hadn’t even known what happened to him. King, though, was still suffering. A piece of shrapnel, from the bomb or maybe torn from the car, had embedded itself somewhere vital. I knelt down by him, unable to even get him comfortable. All he could think of was their snitch Billy in those last moments. He died cursing the man who had set up him and his partner, unaware that this was turning into a full-scale vendetta against the Squad by bigger fish than Billy. 

Bodie was there beside me, and Cowley and Phillips and the clean-up squad weren’t long in coming. I felt stunned. Three deaths in as many hours. And Cowley would have been the first if he hadn’t had that warning. And if Bodie and I had been on time, if we’d been in his office with him this morning, then… I looked at my partner. 

‘Whoever did this – we’ll get them, Ray,’ Bodie said, real low for my benefit alone. 

‘I know we will.’ If this had happened a couple of years before, maybe I would have thrown up. As it was, my stomach churned sour, angry acid. ‘Before they get _us_ , Bodie.’ 

‘Yeah.’ He smiled a little, and for a moment his eyes softened. Reminded me of the way he’d looked at me the previous night, after we’d satisfied each other on his sofa and then tumbled into his bed. ‘Before they get us,’ he promised. 

I suddenly wondered how I’d cope if, like Lake, I was deprived of my partner in one of these bomb blasts. Not very well, I began to suspect. 

We found Chris, Williams’ snitch, dead and surrounded by the blood money he would neither regret nor enjoy. ‘A thousand pounds,’ Lake observed, angry and disgusted. The price of his partner’s life. 

I watched him for a moment, his grief at last overcoming the righteous fury. I decided I didn’t ever want to be in his shoes. 

♦

Bodie and I went to visit Billy next. We found where Billy lived easily enough, but promptly had to chase him over the rooftops. When we finally caught up with him, dragged him back to his flat, and showed him our IDs, he seemed relieved. ‘You’re CI5! I don’t believe it. What the hell are you treating me like this for?’ 

‘You can’t imagine?’ I asked flatly. It was easy to scare the boy, even once he’d assumed we were all on the same side. AsBodie said, snitching must be a nervous profession. 

Seeing as Billy was playing dumb, Bodie was telling the story, in brutal and pedantic detail, of how Matheson and King had been tricked into being at a certain place at a certain time by their most trusted snitch, and how when they returned to their car they found an explosive device waiting for them. 

Billy was acting suitably horrified. But once we’d made it clear we blamed him for the events, he protested, ‘What? I didn’t do anything!’ 

‘King thinks differently. He took a little longer dying than Matheson. Not nice, was it?’ 

‘No, very messy,’ I put in. 

‘However,’ Bodie said in conclusion, ‘when he did die, he mentioned you.’ 

But, having thoroughly put the fear of Cowley into Billy, we became convinced that Billy was just an unknowing pawn in this psychotic game. He had been fed information by someone else, and had unwittingly passed it on. Someone who knew both Matheson and King, _and_ their favourite snitch. 

We handed Billy over to Fischer, and told her to get what she could from him then turn him loose to track down his contact on our behalf. One step closer. 

As we drove away, I suddenly remembered our planned double date for that night. This vendetta was going to put our normal lives on hold for a good while – not that they were often normal, for that matter. ‘We can’t go to Louis’s now, can we? Well, they got into Cowley’s office, didn’t they?’ I said to Bodie. ‘Only Cowley doesn’t even have a regular office. So how much do they know?’ It was a sobering thought. 

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m with you, mate.’ 

The answer was, of course, that Bodie should call Joanna and postpone the date and hope she didn’t cancel altogether, so we headed for his flat He seemed a little surprised at my insistence on keeping Joanna sweet, but I had my reasons. 

‘O’ course you know the first rule, don’t you?’ I asked Bodie. And we chorused, ‘Be purposely unpredictable.’ Which sounded like fun to me – he’d been bloody unpredictable the previous night, that was for sure. 

Bodie just quietly observed, ‘Nice way to make a living.’ I had to agree with him. 

We reached his flat, and he headed inside to call Joanna. I was waiting for him in the car outside when he sent a terse message over the RT. ‘Doyle. Get in here.’ 

Immediately fearing the worst, all my instincts and training took over – I went in there fast but careful, gun drawn and using the little cover available. 

Bodie was, for some reason, sitting calmly by the phone, halfway through dialling a number. He gave me an exasperated look. _Cut the dramatics, Doyle_. 

‘What’s happening?’ I asked, playing it cool. 

‘The phone,’ he explained. ‘It’s got more plastic in it than it did this morning.’ 

I relaxed. A little. As much as the adrenalin would let me, at least. ‘That all?’ I wandered over, holstering the gun. Later, I’d feel like a prat for running in like that, but I was too pumped right now. 

Kneeling by the table, I carefully took the phone apart while Bodie sat there, finger holding the dial steady. There was a pound of plastic explosive tucked away inside, with the tripper wired to the dial. Nasty. ‘Don’t mess about, do they?’ 

‘I feel like that kid with a finger in the dyke,’ Bodie said. We were both talking quietly, the suspense a physical presence. 

‘That’s just what you are, mate. You keep it stuck in there.’ Funny, but I felt very close to Bodie right then, like no one else existed but us in our own little melodrama. 

At last I pulled the detonator out. ‘Hold your breath, sunshine,’ I advised him before I cut the wires. Safe again! Bodie lifted his finger. ‘You were very lucky, mate,’ I said. ‘If you’d have released that dial earlier, it would have been the last cheap rate call you ever made.’ 

He was happy then, smiling. Typical Bodie – he came through a scrape, he was on top of the world. Me – I started shaking, picturing all the alternatives. 

It was damn lucky that the idiot who had fixed the phone had left that tiny piece of wire for Bodie to find. Maybe he was playing with us, giving Bodie a warning like he’d given Cowley one – I suddenly wondered if Williams or Matheson and King had missed similar clues. And if Bodie had missed the significance of that wire, he’d have let that dial go, and… And I’d have been sitting outside, waiting, alone, useless, just like poor bloody Lake. The shakes would have turned into full-blooded shudders if I hadn’t got a hold of myself. They really didn’t pay us enough to go through all this. 

Anyway, Cowley shows up and tells Phillips he wants his men to go over every CI5 operative’s home. ‘If they know this address, they’ll know all of them.’ 

‘That’s going to take some time,’ Phillips says, no doubt envisaging a few twenty-five hour days. 

‘Looks as if we’re going to be homeless for some time,’ Cowley observes. 

I sighed. I really should have been expecting that. 

♦

Fischer, with Billy’s help, tracked down the man who’d given Billy the false information. And he, after the application of some suitable psychological tactics by Fischer and me and Bodie, insisted he was merely taking orders from someone called Wakeman. Which led to more questions than it answered – there was a Wakeman, who knew enough about CI5 to be our suspect, but who’d been killed by Cowley years before. God only knew what we were dealing with now. Still, Catrall, one of Wakeman’s old colleagues, had recently come home to England, so we decided to check him out. 

Cowley sent some of the fresher operatives to keep watch overnight on Catrall’s known haunts, including a marina on the river, a club in Soho, and an old caravan hidden away in some ruined, roofless warehouse. Meanwhile, Bodie and I and the others who had no safe alternative spent a restless night at our new temporary HQ. Due to space constrictions, me and my partner ended up sleeping together on an army cot in someone’s deserted office. But, although it was comforting to have him there, arms firmly around me, it was a far cry from the simple pleasure we’d shared the previous night. 

♦

The old caravan blew up just as we should have predicted. Luckily Cowley, Bodie and I got out of it just in time, though the shock wave of the blast literally deafened us. 

To draw Catrall and company out, we put it out that Bodie and I were fatalities, and that Cowley had severe burns. We rushed Cowley to hospital where he was set up in an oxygen tent. 

My partner and I were more comfortable, in the room next door with cups of tea. I sat up on the bed, and Bodie pulled a chair closer so that he could prop his feet up by me. Phillips came in. ‘How are you feeling?’ 

Bodie eventually said morosely, ‘There’s a little bloke inside my head whistling a tune. And I think he’s forgotten it.’ 

‘Personally speaking,’ I added, ‘I’m wondering how being officially listed as dead is going to cock up my next pay. Here – hope they don’t cancel my pension.’ 

‘I don’t know how you can think of money at a time like this,’ Bodie complained. 

So I asked him what he was thinking about. It took a few minutes for my query to get past the ringing in his ears, which got me a little hot under the collar, and which also caused Phillips some amusement at our expense, but eventually Bodie yelled back, ‘Joanna! Won’t be able to see her _again_ tonight –’ And then he realised that was another girlfriend we’d blown between us. _‘Again!’_

I sat there wondering at the curious mix of relief and disappointment I felt over losing out on Joanna and her friend. I’d never even known the friend’s name. She might have been nice. 

Then the balloon went up – Catrall had found Cowley. The three of us ran round to his room, but the old man had Catrall well and truly under control. I always knew Cowley was indestructible. 

One bad guy down, one to go. Fischer called in on her way to the hospital to say that Wakeman was a bird – the original Wakeman’s sister. She was prowling the corridors in wait for us, but Phillips heroically took the bullet she meant for Cowley, pushing the old man out of the way. Fischer arrived just in time to help us corner Wakeman, then took her in. 

All Cowley could say was, ‘Great. After all I’ve been through, I end up getting a sprained wrist from one of my own men.’ 

We watched himwalk away. ‘There’s gratitude for you,’ I commented. Phillips just shrugged as well as he was able with his good shoulder. What the hell else did we all expect? 

♦

‘Where are we heading?’ I asked wearily, the accumulated exhaustion and all the angry sorrow having at last caught up with me. 

Bodie grinned over at me from behind the wheel of the Escort as he pulled up at a red light. ‘It’s a surprise, sweetpea. Just be patient for once.’ 

‘Phillips hasn’t even started on our places yet,’ I started grumbling. Catrall and Wakeman were being cagey about whether they’d left any other explosive devices lying in wait for the unwary, so Cowley had told Phillips to go ahead with his sweep of all our homes, the safe houses, the various offices we used. Which was going to take forever. 

Sighing, Bodie interrupted and spoiled the surprise for me. He should have known better, anyhow – I hate surprises. ‘So I booked us a fancy hotel room. Had enough of army cots to last me a lifetime. And offices, too, for that matter.’ He cast me a sour look which promptly got sourer. ‘And don’t worry that funny little head of yours – I’m footing the bill, OK?’ 

‘OK,’ I agreed mildly, shrugging like I didn’t know why he’d made a point of that. He just growled at me. 

When we got to the hotel, my jaw dropped. _Fancy_ wasn’t the word for it. More like _opulent_ , maybe. I wandered round our double room, peering into or trying out all the features. I didn’t even know what some of them were. Bodie stopped growling and started laughing, especially when I observed, ‘Still, pity you could only afford the one bed.’ 

I should never have said my partner was stupid – this was exactly what we needed… Lounging around in comfy chairs and nice hot baths and big fluffy bathrobes, devouring or picking at several meals from room service, imbibing scotch and vodka in abundance, half watching the in-house movies. The idiot had even brought us some fresh clothes for the morning, which could only mean he’d ignored Cowley’s edict and gone home for them. 

‘Did you ever call Joanna?’ I asked much later in the evening. 

‘What?’ he asked, mind obviously on other things. ‘No. Doesn’t matter – it’s over anyway. She doesn’t need me to tell her that.’ 

‘Yeah,’ I said sadly. You came to easily recognise the point of no return with birds in this job. ‘Pity though… Sounded like a very accommodating lady. Her friend might have been the same.’ 

Bodie just gave an ambivalent sort of grunt. He was looking at me though, so I assumed he was listening. 

‘We’ve double dated a lot,’ I continued, the vodka and my sleepiness easing my confession of what had been on my mind over the last couple of days. ‘Always ended up in separate rooms at the end of the evening, though.’ I glanced at Bodie to see how he was taking it so far – a neutral expression, but at least he hadn’t thrown me out yet. ‘Just thought that those two might have been willing… you know, for a foursome. Just thought we might like to try it, maybe once.’ There! It was out at last. 

Silence for a long moment. Then, ‘Christ, Doyle, you’re enough to give a guy an inferiority complex.’ 

‘You wouldn’t know one if you fell over it,’ I retorted. 

‘Shows how much you know, doesn’t it?’ 

‘What the hell are you on about?’ 

‘Forget it.’ And he turned back to the telly, arms crossed, mouth pouting. Adorable. 

‘Yeah, try that look on her,’ I said admiringly. ‘That would win any bird over.’ 

‘God, you’re impossible, Ray.’ But after a moment, he started laughing again. He ruefully explained, ‘Here I am doing the big seduction number, and you don’t even bloody well notice. You just sit there lapping it up and raving on about the birds you wish were here.’ 

Vivid memories of the sex we’d shared just two nights before abruptly rushed back into full focus. I walked over to him, knelt in front of him. ‘Didn’t know you were available, mate.’ 

‘For the asking,’ he admitted, like he found the whole thing amusing and quite unbelievable. 

‘So I’m asking,’ I said softly. And he stood up and led me to the bed. Maybehe didn’t know it, but his hands were shaking. I was only glad that someone around here was more nervous than me. 

♦

‘We got them before they got us,’ I observed. It was very dark and quiet in that hotel room, and I felt that we were safe for the first time in too long. 

‘Christ, Doyle,’ he complained, tightening his arms around me. ‘I was almost asleep.’ 

‘I was thinking –’ 

‘That’s dangerous,’ he put in softly, ‘this time of night.’

‘Shut up, Bodie. I was thinking about Lake and Williams. And Matheson and King.’ 

‘Leave them be, Ray,’ he said. ‘What’s done is done.’ 

‘I bet Lake wouldn’t see it that way at present.’ 

‘He’s all right. Went up to his family, took Williams’ girl and mother up with him. Reckoned they all needed some peace and quiet for a couple of days.’ 

‘Did he?’ I asked vaguely. Trust Bodie to know what was going on. Truth be told, he’d probably done whatever he could on their behalf, rather than sitting around like me worrying uselessly about the cause of the problem. ‘And Matheson and King? What about their lot?’ 

‘Didn’t really have anyone, those two.’ 

‘Like us, huh?’ 

Bodie sighed. ‘Yeah. Like us, sugarplum.’ 

‘Makes you wonder, though. Bodie…’ But I trailed off, considering that last endearment. _‘Sugarplum?’_ I asked, propping myself up on an elbow to lean over him. ‘As in the bleeding fairy?’ 

‘Would I call you a fairy?’ he asked reasonably. 

‘Maybe the pressure’s got to you.’ 

‘Yeah, all the strain. the long hours, bombs every which way you turn…’

‘Has to be it.’ 

‘That, or wishful thinking,’ Bodie agreed. 

I looked him in the eye though it was no doubt too dark for my interrogatory expression to have much effect. Bodie’s tone had been facetious, but there was something else, some uncertainty in him. ‘Are you kidding?’ I asked suspiciously. 

‘Stop changing the bloody subject, Doyle,’ he retorted, mounting a weak counter-offensive. ‘What were you on about before? Makes you wonder what?’ 

‘I’ll tell you, if you tell me whether you were kidding or not.’ 

Bodie looked fit to strangle me, but at last he nodded. ‘You first.’ 

‘It’s just –’ I started, wondering how on earth I’d been planning to say it. ‘There’s been alot of people die, people I know, like my dad. My old partner in the Met was shot, and half of bloody CI5 have bought it. And there’s all the people I’ve killed, too…’ 

‘Yeah,’ Bodie prompted after awhile. 

‘There’s never been one yet where I wished it were me that died instead.’ 

‘Only natural,’ he said, unsurprised. ‘Glad it was never you, too, Ray.’ 

‘Except if it was you,’ I blurted out before I lost my nerve, ignoring his last comment for now. ‘I don’t want to be left hanging around like poor bloody Lake. Couldn’t bear it. If we go, want us to go together. Or me first.’ 

‘Together, or not at all,’ Bodie mused. ‘I’d prefer the latter.’ 

‘I’m _serious_ , Bodie.’ 

He abruptly said, ‘I wasn’t kidding. It was wishful thinking.’ 

‘What?’ Having lost track of the conversation in my thoughts of doom and gloom. 

‘Fell for you, didn’t I? Head over bloody heels. Fancied you for a long time, then when it finally happened it was all fireworks and violins.’ 

‘You’re crazy,’ I told him. ‘You fell for me, and I didn’t even notice? I’m not bloody blind.’ 

‘Of course you are, sunshine,’ he soothed, ‘when it comes to this sort of thing. Haven’t even worked out you’ve fallen for me yet.’ 

I was reeling, mentally at least. ‘Haven’t I? I mean, have I?’ I could just see that the smug, adorable bastard was smiling, as uncomplicatedly happy as only Bodie could be. And I had caused that? 

‘Come here,’ Bodie said. And he kissed me. 

All the confusion in me melted – it seemed that my partner was right. Yet again. Bloody typical, it was. 

♦


End file.
